


That I Might Reach You

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 19:52:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17793695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Four times Darth Vader met Leia Organa





	That I Might Reach You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wolf_of_Lilacs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_of_Lilacs/gifts).



The first time he meets her, they are at a political function. The Emperor has no patience for the treaty these spineless Senators wish for him to sign. He ordered Vader to attend in his stead. Let them see his dark enforcer and quiver in their silk slippers, he said, and now Vader is here, sent to be menacing. Instead, Vader is bored and distracted. Watching politicians mingle brings up memories he has tried to scorch from his mind. Caught in one, a dark-haired girl approaches him with a steely determination that catches him off-guard and spins him inside a broken bubble of a dream.

He does not call this mad, brave girl by the name that first comes to his lips. He stays silent. Silence strikes far more fear than even his enhanced voice can. He says nothing as she comes right up to him.

"Is the Emperor so frightened of our proposal that he sent his lap dog instead?"

A few of the wiser Senators take a step away. The girl ignores them. Vader senses a thick aura of the Force around her. Interesting.

A moment later, Bail Organa has made his way to her side. He takes her arm, wide eyes on Vader's mask. "Apologies, Lord Vader. I was wondering where my daughter had gone. Leia, we're late."

Her head turns to him. "Late?"

"I told you." He gives a smile to Vader. Vader is not supposed to kill anyone tonight unless he has to, although for all the memories this man brings back now, he does deserve to die. "Children forget everything you tell them. If you'll excuse us."

He pulls the girl away, tugging at her arm and forcing her to follow unless she wishes to cause a scene. Vader can read the line of deep embarrassment in her shoulders as her father makes her leave the function like a poorly-behaved child. So Organa's little brat has some Force sensitivity. No wonder he's kept her away from Coruscant. The Emperor or Vader would have noticed her much sooner, and had she been born just a few years sooner, the Jedi might have taken her.

Thinking about that time brings up more of the past in his mind. Vader turns without a word and leaves the function, away from where that awful Organa took his child, away from this place that reminds him too much of Padmé.

*

The second time he meets her, she's stolen the plans to Tarkin's new toy. That the plans have escaped his grasp is a small issue, one soon rectified. The droids will be found. In the meantime, he can enjoy knowing Organa's brat is suffering under the tender care of a torture droid. She'll be executed as soon as she gives up the location of the Rebel base, an example to any other would-be traitors and a blow to her traitorous allies.

What he doesn't understand is why he feels drawn to keep watching her silently. She has some Force sensitivity, yes, and it burns even stronger in her defiance. Vader half hopes it's enough to make her use her power, fling some tendril out against them, untrained as she is. A show of the Force would be enough to warrant another death sentence if she needs another reason to die with the rest of her people.

Another thought forms. He doesn't let it have structure or words. His master would know. But she does have power, more than he first believed. Leia Organa could be trained, could be turned.

Vader pleases himself with the thought. An apprentice of his own. Turning the child of his hated adversary to the path of darkness. The picture is sweet inside his mind.

But before she is executed, before he can stay the order, she's escaped from under his nose, and his plans are dashed until he feels the Force in another mere hours later. He doesn't forget Organa, but the moment he hears the name "Skywalker," he has other issues to contend with.

*

The third time they meet, it is at dinner. Vader has researched every scrap of information he can find about his son, the lost child he'd thought had died with Padmé so long ago. Once he allowed himself to consider taking on an apprentice, the thought set claws inside his mind, and now he must follow the plan to its conclusion. The Organa girl has power. Vader will use her as his secondary choice should Luke turn out to be disappointing, but all his hard-bought data tells him the moment she is in danger, Luke will come running to her side.

It's a perfect trap.

Vader will never forget the month of pain he experienced as his mother was slowly tortured to death by the Tusken Raiders. Attachment is a curse, and he discovered why that is by the hardest way of all. Luke has let himself become attached to these two humans, far too much not to feel their pain as Vader orders the droids to increase their voltage shocks.

Organa doesn't scream. She may not have any idea of how to use the power Vader knows is within her, but she taps into that power nonetheless, remaining silent as the excruciating pain moves through her body. Remarkable. He must keep her close. Even if he collects Luke and turns him, there is no need to waste someone with this much potential, and besides, the lure of her continued safety may be enough to keep his son obedient. Vader knows if the situation had been even slightly different, if the Emperor could have saved Padmé from her death, the hope of keeping her safe would have kept Vader even more loyal.

He sends Organa back to the room where she's being held captive, and he watches her. A second apprentice. It's unheard of among the Sith. But he wonders.

*

The last time he sees her, Leia is laughing by the fire. He can see her mother in her. To her detriment, he can see more than a little of himself. Bail and his wife raised her, but Anakin knows the depth of her anger and the heights of her spirit better than they could have dreamed.

In another life, he would have raised her beside her brother, would have watched her grow every day, the image of her mother and the light of both their lives. He reached the end of his life. In this calm, fading place after, he watches her with Luke and with their friends. Although he cannot wish that things went differently, that he'd made different choices, that destiny had not brought them all here, he can let himself imagine for one moment. There is a universe of love inside him for his children, a love he knows would be rejected by his daughter should he speak to her now.

Silence is the greatest gift he can offer. He stays silent, and he watches her.


End file.
